President Obama’s hours of interviews in The New Yorker overshadow the more intriguing profile of L. Brooks Patterson, the county executive of Oakland County, Mich., which encompasses the wealthy suburbs outside Detroit.

Patterson sounds like he agrees with Obama on the “economic bifurcation” plaguing America when he repeats an observation he’s been criticized for in the past.

The bankrupt Motor City, Patterson says, is being turned “into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn.”

Patterson concedes he “sometimes say[s] things that make people cringe.”